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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25450681">no such thing as despair</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/inquisitor_tohru/pseuds/inquisitor_tohru'>inquisitor_tohru</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>No. 6 (Anime &amp; Manga)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Body Horror, Dreams and Nightmares, Holding Hands, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, M/M, Missing Scene, Parasites, Rats</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:00:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>754</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25450681</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/inquisitor_tohru/pseuds/inquisitor_tohru</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Shion has a nightmare, but he doesn't have to deal with it alone.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Nezumi/Shion (No. 6), Safu &amp; Shion (No. 6)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Parallels Fanworks Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>no such thing as despair</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/gifts">geckoholic</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Shion woke with a whimper, his white hair plastered to his forehead. The dream wasn't always the same. Sometimes it was his mother, or Inukashi, or even the woman that accosted him in a West Block alley. But this time it had been <em> Safu </em> whose flesh had turned old and slack as the wasp was born, bursting forth from her swollen lower abdomen. He struggled and writhed beneath the twisting red snake's hold on his body. If he could only manage to free himself, then maybe…</p><p>One of the rats tugged on his sleeve, pulling him from his memories the nightmare before he drowned in them. He sat up to see Nezumi perched on the end of his bed, wet black hair drooping over his ears, the dim light accentuating the sharp angles of his slim figure. Shion's unconscious mind did allow him one small mercy - Nezumi never graced the stage of his nightmares.</p><p>"I got you some water." When Nezumi handed him the glass, he recalled his own close encounter with the wasp. The source of his stark white hair and the sinuous red marks that Nezumi called 'charming'. Nezumi had brought him water then, too, and it still tasted as fresh and pure as that day.</p><p>"Thank you." The bedding was in disarray, as if thrown aside by someone thrashing around in their sleep, and he doubted that it had been Nezumi. "I'm sorry if I woke you."</p><p>"It happens," Nezumi shrugged. "You told me yourself that I kicked you out of bed three times the other night, so I guess we're even now." He shuffled up the bed, closer to Shion, and took his clammy hand. "It's not <em> real, </em>Shion. You shouldn't dwell on it."</p><p>He nodded, but it wasn't quite true. Just because a nightmare could be a manifestation of stress or anxiety...that didn't mean it wasn't <em> real. </em> And it was from his own experience that Shion knew the parasitic wasps were very, very real. Nezumi told him to throw away his memories, and his concerns for others, but how <em> could </em> he? Even if he <em> wanted </em>to, even if he managed to keep himself from thinking of them during his waking hours, they would always catch up with him when his head hit Nezumi's pillow.</p><p>"Was it Safu this time?" He was too groggy to say for sure, but that might have been the first time he'd heard Nezumi call his childhood friend by her name.</p><p>"How did you guess?" Nezumi snorted.</p><p>"Like I said before, you have a heavy conscience. You're like an open book, and you know how well-read I am." Shion raked his fingers through his hair as he imagined Safu in the Correctional Facility, frightened and alone. "It had to be her or me, and I'd have been willing to bet a gold coin on her."</p><p>"It's never you." He thought of the goodnight kiss they'd shared earlier that evening. Of all the other things they'd shared since that stormy day. "I don't want to lose you, but...I'm already here with you. And I can't be there for everyone else."</p><p>"That's your problem. You want to save everyone," Nezumi said, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration, and then, quieter, "whether they're worth saving or not." Shion got the distinct feeling that Nezumi wasn't talking about Safu, and wanted to remind him that everyone <em> was </em>worth saving. He'd told Inukashi that the people from West Block and the people from No. 6 were the same - that they were all human. But even Shion was having trouble believing that right now, remembering how scared he'd been when the Security Bureau came for him, and thinking how Safu must have felt in the same situation. It all felt so utterly hopeless. Were the people who arrested her worth saving? The people who held her in the Correction Facility, knowing all the while that she was innocent? There was no easy answer, but perhaps the questions were just as important.</p><p>"Although," Nezumi muttered, "perhaps I'm not really one to talk. Just how many times have I saved you now?"</p><p>"So many times that I'm beginning to think you might be in love with me." Shion smiled slightly as Nezumi's grip on his hand tightened and Hamlet climbed up his sleeve and dropped into his pyjama pocket. Before the night of the storm, there had been no such thing as despair in Shion's world. And yet when he looked into Nezumi's grey eyes he held no regrets.</p>
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